avi  dlol-p  \i- N\  aeon  W»w*n'/3  College. 


Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


JANUARY,  1915 


Number  2 


Volume  I 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman’s  College 
Issued  Quarterly 


BULLETIN  OF 


RANDOLPH  -  MACON 


WOMANS  COLLEGE 


LYNCHBURG,  VA, 


ROBERT  J.  WALKER,  IMPERIALIST 


PROFESSOR  W.  E.  DODD 


OUR  GRADUATES  AND  THE  TEACHING  PROFESSION 


RANDOLPH-MACON  SONG  BOOK 


Application  for  admission  as  6ccond-class  matter  made  January  5.  1915.  at  the  Post  Office.  Lynchburg, 
Virginia,  under  Act  of  July  16,  1894. 


fuinoia 


BULLETIN 

OF 

Randolph -Macon 
Woman’s  College 


ROBERT  J.  WALKER,  IMPERIALIST 

BY 

William  E.  Dodd,  Professor  of  American  History- 
University  of  Chicago 

OUR  GRADUATES  AND  THE  TEACHING  PROFESSION 

BY 

Dr.  E.  B.  Crooks,  Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Education 
RANDOLPH-MACON  SONG  BOOK 

BY 

Miss  Louise  Lanham,  A.  B.,  1906 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman’s  College 
Lynchburg,  Virginia 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/robertjwalkerimpOOdodd 


Robert  J.  Walker 
Imperialist 

By  William  Edward  Dodd 

Professor  Dodd,  author  of  a  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  of 
Statesmen  of  the  Old  South,  and  now  professor  of  American 
History  in  the  University  of  Chicago,  zvas  formerly  professor 
of  History  in  Randolph-Macon  College,  Ashland,  Va.  The 
following  address  was  given  in  the  chapel  of  Randolph- 
Macon  Woman's  College  on  the  evening  of  April  15,  1914. 
It  zvas  originally  zvritten  for  the  Chicago  Literary  Club,  and 
was  printed  for  its  members ,  March,  1914.  It  is  here  re¬ 
printed  with  the  consent  of  its  author. 

THAT  the  remains  of  one  of  the  ablest  of  American 
secretaries  of  the  treasury,  of  a  politician  whose  ex¬ 
ploits  were  discussed  all  around  the  world,  of  a  maker 
of  presidents  and  a  “Savior  of  the  Union,”  should  rest 
nearly  forty  years  in  an  unmarked  grave  in  an  obscure  cemetery 
is  one  of  the  contrasts  of  fortune  which  might  give  concern  even 
to  the  boldest  wooers  of  fame.  But  to  have  played  such  a  role 
and  then  have  one’s  name  written  one  way  on  one’s  tombstone 
and  another  on  the  pages  of  history  is  almost  as  bad  as  to  be 
forgotten  altogether.  Such  was,  however,  the  fate  of  Robert 
James  Walker,*  secretary  of  the  treasury  under  James  K.  Polk, 
author  of  the  best  tariff  law  known  to  our  statute  books, f  and  the 
greatest  imperialist  who  ever  violated  the  most  solemn  of  all 
American  declarations.  Such  a  post-mortem  might  suggest  a 
very  tame  and  prosaic  biography.  Not  so  in  the  case  of  Walker, 
whose  life  was  as  crowded  with  event  and  vicissitude  as  ever  the 
tale  of  a  novelist.  Yet  neither  story-teller  nor  sober  historian 

♦The  Library  of  Congress  gives  the  name  on  its  catalogue  as  Robert 
James  Walker;  Appleton’s  Encyclopedia  prints  it  Robert  John  Walker; 
and  on  the  tombstone  in  Oak  Hill  cemetery,  Washington,  it  is  written 
Robert  John  Walker. 

fCompare  Taussig,  F.  W.,  The  Tariff  History  of  the  United  States, 
109-154. 


4 


Bulletin 


ever  stumbled  upon  the  subject,  and  the  records  themselves  have 
all  but  perished. 

Born  of  good  parentage  in  Northumberland,  Pennsylvania,  on 
July  23,  1801,  he  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  the  democratic  up-coun¬ 
try  which  saw  in  Thomas  Jefferson  the  ideal  of  American  life. 
Young  Walker  was  sent  at  an  early  age  to  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  where  he  graduated  in  July,  1819,  at  the  head  of 
his  class.  He  next  appears  as  a  surveyor  for  a  land  company  in 
the  northwest  corner  of  the  state,  but  in  this  raw  region  his  prin¬ 
cipal  interest  was  the  study  of  law,  for  in  three  years  he  was 
ready  to  begin  the  practice  of  that  profession;  and  he  located  in 
Pittsburgh  in  1822.* 

When  at  college  he  seems  to  have  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Mary  Bache,  the  granddaughter  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  and  they 
were  married  soon  after  he  settled  in  the  busy  little  city  on  the 
Ohio.  Thus  he  became  a  member  of  the  powerful  Bache  and 
Dallas  families  so  well  known  to  the  country  in  the  years  just 
preceding  the  civil  war.  His  father  was  then  a  judge  of  the 
state  supreme  court;  his  wife’s  father  had  been  postmaster-gen¬ 
eral  during  the  Revolution  and  his  brother-in-law,  George  M. 
Dallas,  was  already  winning  fame  as  assistant  United  States 
district  attorney  for  eastern  Pennsylvania. 

The  Dallas  influence  in  Pennsylvania  had  already  been  given 
to  the  cause  of  Andrew  Jackson  and  young  Walker  made  an  ad¬ 
dress  before  an  enthusiastic  gathering  in  Pittsburgh  in  the  autumn 
of  T823,  urging  upon  the  voters  of  the  state  the  wisdom  of  sup¬ 
porting  the  doughty  warrior  for  President  the  next  year.  When 
the  Republican  state  convention  met  at  Harrisburg  the  following 
spring  the  speech  of  the  '‘little  lawyer”  from  Pittsburgh  was 
made  the  formal  address  of  the  party  to  the  people  of  the  coun¬ 
try. f  It  was  a  lucky  stroke,  for  to  have  been  an  “original  Jack- 
son  man”  soon  came  to  be  an  open  sesame  for  the  highest  honors 
in  the  land. 


♦Brown,  G.  W.,  Reminiscences  of  Gov.  R.  J.  Walker,  Rockford,  Ill., 
1902,  pp.  24-25 

fNatchez  Statesman  and  Gazette,  July  3,  1828. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


5 


Jackson  did  not  win  in  1824,  but  most  people  in  Pittsburgh 
thought  he  ought  to  have  won  and  that  Henry  Clay  and  John 
Quincy  Adams  had,  with  sinister  purpose,  conspired  to  deprive 
him  of  his  right  to  the  high  office  to  which  he  had  aspired.  Two 
years  later  Robert  Walker  followed  his  brother  Duncan  to  the 
then  far-off  Natchez  on  the  lower  Mississippi,  where  he  became 
a  member  of  the  law  firm  of  “Walker  and  Walker/’*  The  older 
brother  died  three  years  later  and  Robert  came  into  a  practice 
of  great  value  and  importance.  His  friends  and  associates  were 
Joseph  Davis,  brother  of  Jefferson  Davis,  John  A.  Quitman,  and 
others,  soon  to  win  national  reputations  as  leaders  and  spokes¬ 
men  of  the  growing  Southwest. 

There  was  no  more  interesting  or  lively  community  in  the 
United  States  than  the  Mississippi  of  1830.  With  a  population  of 
136,000,  nearly  half  of  whom  were  slaves,  millions  of  acres  of 
rich  lands  ready  for  occupation,  and  the  stimulus  of  sudden 
wealth  promised  by  the  ever-increasing  demand  for  cotton,  it  was 
but  natural  that  “times”  should  be  “flush”  and  that  men  should 
be  reckless.  Fortunes  were  won  in  a  few  years  and  great 
plantations  speedily  took  the  places  of  canebrakes  and  stagnant 
swamps.  Joseph  Davis  had  gone  to  Natchez  a  poor  man ;  he  was 
now  a  great  lawyer  and  a  master  of  many  slaves.  James  C. 
Wilkins,  of  Pennsylvania,  had  begun  with  little  capital ;  he  was 
now  the  head  of  a  bank  which  controlled  the  currency  of  the 
whole  state.  Money-making  was  a  mania  and  everybody  had  a 
hand  in  speculations,  large  or  small.  To  resist  this  regime  or  to 
refuse  to  endorse  for  a  friend  was  frequently  the  occasion  for 

a  duel.  “A  Mr.  -  brought  a  letter  of  introduction  from  a 

friend.  I  endorsed  his  bill  for  a  thousand  dollars  and  had  it 
discounted  for  him.  It  came  back  protested.  Do  you  know  where 
he  is  or  anything  about  him  ?”  Another  comment  on  these  “flush 
times”  runs :  “I  should  like  to  get  a  contract  for  building  a  sec¬ 
tion  of  the  Mississippi  railroad.  I  owe  about  $250,000.  But  I 
am  planting  fifteen  hundred  acres  in  cotton  and  I  own  three 
large  plantations  well  stocked  with  negroes.  The  paper  now  due 
I  could  discharge  with  my  cotton  crop ;  but  by  that  time  another 

♦Natchez  Statesman  and  Gazette,  January  31,  1828. 


6 


Bulletin 


instalment  falls  due,  so  I  must  draw  on  next  year’s  crop  or  go  to 
work  on  the  railroad.  If  I  could  only  arrange  with  your  bank  to 
draw  in  anticipation  of  my  work,  you  might  pay  my  debts,  supply 
provisions  and  so  forth,  and  a  few  thousand  dollars  for  pocket 
money  and  a  trip  to  the  springs,  and  I  will  forthwith  put  two 
hundred  able-bodied  negroes  on  the  road” — this  from  a  man  who 
three  years  before  had  scarce  owned  a  penny’s  worth ! 

But  the  greatest  subject  of  exploitation  was  the  Indian,  who 
still  owned  vast  areas  of  land  in  the  West.  From  Illinois  to  Lou¬ 
isiana  the  hardy  pioneers,  whose  characters  we  are  so  prone  to 
idealize  to-day,  were  ruthlessly  despoiling,  without  pretense  of 
legal  right,  the  helpless  natives.  The  very  basis  of  Jackson’s  pow¬ 
er  was  his  free  license  to  the  westerners  to  work  their  will  upon 
these  wards  of  the  nation.  Nowhere  was  this  spirit  more  rampant 
than  in  Mississippi,  where  some  fifteen  thousand  square  miles 
of  land  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians  and  hotly  coveted  by 
cotton  planters  and  small  farmers  alike.  In  February,  1831,  the 
treaty  of  Dancing  Rabbit  gave  the  Mississippians  conditional  pos¬ 
session  of  all  this  land.  Public  land  sales  were  announced  in 
1833  only  a  short  forty  days  before  the  autioneer  was  to  begin 
his  work.  The  Indians,  who  were  still  trying  to  save  themselves 
by  showing  the  illegality  of  the  treaty,  were  in  the  greatest  dis¬ 
tress;  and  the  army  of  squatters  already  on  the  public  domain 
were  hardly  less  disturbed  by  this  sudden  turn  of  things.  Only 
the  land  agents  and  their  friends  who  had  prepared  this  stroke 
were  happy. 

Into  this  situation  Walker  plunged  with  an  abandon  suggestive 
of  his  future  career.  He  organized  some  two  hundred  of  the  pros¬ 
pective  purchasers  into  an  association  of  which  he  became  prin¬ 
cipal  spokesman  and  beneficiary.  These  gentlemen,  men  of  the 
first  consequence  in  Mississippi  and  the  neighboring  states,  Gov¬ 
ernment  officials,  directors  of  banks,  and  judges  of  the  courts, 
entered  into  an  agreement  whereby  they  were  not  to  bid  against 
each  other  at  any  of  the  sales  of  public  lands.  Walker  and  his 
appointees  were  to  manage  the  bidding  and  afterwards  appor¬ 
tion  the  proceeds.  They  made  arrangements  with  squatters  and 
small  farmers  to  procure  for  them  their  little  tracts  on  condition 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


7 


that  they  would  not  bid  against  the  association.  The  charge  for 
this  service  was  a  dollar  an  acre  above  the  Government  minimum. 
And  this  scheme  of  defrauding  the  country  was  so  popular  that 
Walker  was  given  a  public  dinner  by  the  farmers  and  squatters 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  sales  at  Choccuma.* 

The  plan  of  the  association  was  carried  out  everywhere,  the 
Federal  land  officers  lending  their  aid  and  receiving  their  reward; 
and  Walker  and  his  friends  thus  came  into  possession  of  great 
tracts  of  land  which  were  easily  sold  at  prices  ranging  from  two  to 
twenty  dollars  per  acre.  Many  of  the  fortunes  of  the  lower  South 
were  the  result  of  this  campaign  against  the  treasury  of  the 
United  States;  but  it  might  be  regarded  as  ungracious,  even  at 
this  late  day,  to  publish  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  men  who  at  that 
time  made  no  denial  of  their  part  in  the  transaction.! 

The  scandal  of  the  land  sales  of  October,  1833,  was  so  great 
that  Senator  Poindexter,  one  of  the  foremost  public  men  of  the 
time,  succeeded  in  getting  an  investigation  of  the  subject,  and  a 
report  was  made  to  the  senate  in  the  summer  of  1834,  which  show¬ 
ed  something  of  the  character  of  Walker’s  work  in  this  his  first 
important  undertaking.  Senators  from  Tennessee,  Alabama,  and 
Louisiana  resisted  Poindexter’s  efforts  to  give  the  widest  publicity 
to  the  report,  and  especially  his  proposition  to  punish  the  guilty 
parties.  Nothing  was  done  except  to  print  the  report,  which  ap¬ 
peared  in  many  newspapers  of  the  time  without  any  severe  criti¬ 
cism  of  the  transaction.  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster  sup¬ 
ported  the  investigation,  while  others  said  that  the  practice  of 
defrauding  the  Government  had  gone  so  far  and  involved  so 
many  eminent  characters  that  it  was  well-nigh  impossible  to  pun¬ 
ish  anyone.^ 

Poindexter  had  raised  a  dangerous  issue  in  Mississippi  and  his 
defeat  was  demanded  at  the  coming  election.  Now,  the  distin¬ 
guished  senator  was  none  too  strong  with  the  people  at  best;  his 
attack  upon  the  land  thieves,  numerous  as  they  were,  only  added 

* American  State  Papers,  Public  Lands,  VII,  448-64;  also  VIII,  711-788. 

fSee  Riley,  F.  L.,  Publications  of  the  Mississippi  Historical  Society, 
VIII,  345-395,  for  story  of  the  Choctaw  land  frauds  which  grew  out  of 
these  operations. 

\Register  of  Debates  in  Congress,  X,  pt.  1,  43;  Ibid.,  754-755,  812-14. 


8 


Bulletin 


to  his  troubles.  Besides,  he  had  broken  with  Jackson,  who  had 
charged  him  with  having  instigated  the  recent  attack  upon  his  life. 
From  an  ardent  supporter  in  1828  he  became  an  opponent  when 
Calhoun  had  been  driven  out  of  the  Presidential  counsels  in  the 
spring  of  1831.  In  the  Jackson-Clay  campaign  of  the  next  year 
Poindexter  had  been  the  most  ardent  Clay  and  bank  champion. 
This  completed  the  Presidential  condemnation,  and  the  Mississippi 
senator  was  henceforth  a  marked  man.  Poindexter  had  long 
been  the  most  ardent  of  the  southern  nationalists ;  he  now  became 
an  extreme  state’s  rights  advocate  and  follower  of  Calhoun.* 

Walker,  who  now  began  a  two-years’  campaign  against  his  for¬ 
mer  friend,  Poindexter,  had  already  won  his  spurs  in  Mississippi 
politics.  His  championship  of  Jackson  had  been  of  the  greatest 
importance  in  1828,  and  in  the  fight  in  the  lower  South  against 
Nullification  he  was  an  acknowledged  leader;  it  was  his  influence 
which  in  large  measure  caused  the  defeat  of  the  Calhoun  party  in 
the  Mississippi  legislature  in  the  winter  of  1833.  At  the  time  he 
organized  his  raid  on  the  public  lands  he  was  proclaiming  his 
everlasting  devotion  to  the  Union.  But  the  greatest  of  his  politi¬ 
cal  undertakings  to  date  was  begun  in  1834,  when  he  served  notice 
on  Poindexter  that  he  would  contest  with  him  the  right  to  repre¬ 
sent  Mississippi  in  the  United  States  senate.  For  two  years  the 
battle  waged.  Every  device  known  to  American  politics  was 
resorted  to.  Poindexter  had  ceased  to  represent  the  people  of 
his  state,  it  was  charged ;  he  had  slandered  some  of  the  best  names 
in  the  Southwest;  he  had  tried  to  assassinate  the  President  of 
the  United  States. 

Henry  Clay  lent  his  influence  to  this  bitter  enemy  of  Jackson; 
Sergeant  Prentiss  rose  to  fame  in  the  defense  of  Poindexter; 
and  the  budding  Whig  party  of  that  region  identified  its  fortunes 
with  those  of  the  great  senator.  But  the  Jackson  administration 
favored  Walker;  the  small  farmers  were  enthusiastic  in  his  be¬ 
half  ;  speculators  were  even  more  closely  identified  with  his  cause; 
and  in  order  to  make  a  strong  local  appeal  to  the  eastern  section 
of  the  state  he  purchased  a  plantation  in  Madison  county  and 
took  up  his  residence  there.  He  pleased  the  squatter  element  by 

♦Rowland,  Dunbar,  Encyclopedia  of  Mississippi,  “Poindexter." 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


9 


urging  as  a  part  of  his  policy  the  free  homestead  idea,  which 
became  law  only  under  Lincoln  thirty  years  later ;  he  attracted  the 
religious  element  by  adopting  the  revivalist  methods  of  Lorenzo 
Dow,  the  famous  itinerant  evangelist.  The  Gwins  helped  him 
finance  his  campaign,  and  Henry  S.  Foote,  later  of  “hangman” 
fame  in  the  United  States  senate,  supplied  a  billingsgate  oratory 
which  equalled,  if  it  did  not  surpass,  that  of  Poindexter  himself. 
The  outcome  was  a  decided  victory  for  Walker,  though  the  elec¬ 
tion  in  the  legislature*  became  at  once  the  subject  of  an  investiga¬ 
tion,  which,  however,  only  led  to  a  “whitewash.” 

Walker  was  now  thirty-six  years  old  and  a  member  of  the 
United  States  senate.  In  appearance  he  was  anything  but  prepos¬ 
sessing;  he  resembled,  somewhat,  Alexander  Stephens,  the  home¬ 
liest  man  who  ever  sat  in  congress ;  he  was  thin,  angular,  and  a 
dyspeptic  who  was  frequently  unable  to  be  at  his  post  of  duty; 
but  he  was  withal  a  man  of  towering  ambition,  a  consummate 
intriguer  and  as  versatile  in  all  the  arts  of  the  politician  as  if  he 
had  been  “bred  to  the  trade.”  “The  Wizard  of  Mississippi”  he 
was  called,  and  the  title  was  apt ;  he  was  the  first  of  modern  bosses. 
And  he  gave  the  public  an  inkling  of  his  personal  pretensions 
when  he  reminded  the  senate  that  he  had  taken  his  seat  on  the 
anniversary  of  Washington’s  birth. f 

Clay  did  not  relish  the  presence  or  the  pretensions  of  the  new 
member,  and  he  promptly  reminded  Walker  of  the  disastrous 
effect  of  any  comparison  of  himself  with  the  “Father  of  his 
Country.”  This  was  but  the  beginning  of  the  hazing  which  lead¬ 
ing  senators  gave  the  ambitious  newcomer.  But  treatment  of  this 
kind  did  not  disturb  the  man  who  had  completely  captivated  the 
people  of  his  state  and  who  was  presently  to  become  the  spokes¬ 
man  of  Andrew  Jackson  in  the  “most  august  legislative  body 
in  the  world.”  The  new  member  stood  triumphantly  in  the  place 
of  the  man  who  had  only  a  short  while  before  denounced  him 
before  the  country,  and  he  confronted  Henry  Clay,  who  had 
advised  criminal  prosecutions  against  him  and  his  friends.  And 

*The  Mississippian,  Jan.  31,  1836;  and  for  the  campaign  see  ibid.,  Oct.  9, 
1830,  Dec.  18,  1835,  and  Jan.  31,  1836. 

f Register  of  Debates  in  Congress,  Vol.  12,  part  1,  1175-76. 


IO 


Bulletin 


Walker  was  not  the  man  to  conceal  his  delight  at  the  embarrass¬ 
ment  of  his  foes.* 

Until  Walker  appeared  in  the  senate  Thomas  H.  Benton  had 
been  the  acknowledged  mouthpiece  of  the  West  in  that  body; 
but  the  young  senator  at  once  took  place  as  a  western  member 
whose  views  must  count.  Benton  was  the  advocate  of  very  liberal 
land  laws ;  Walker  proposed  the  free  homestead  policy.  Benton 
had  long  been  urging  the  quiet  purchase  of  Texas ;  Walker  raised 
the  cry  of  the  immediate  “reannexation”  of  Texas  without  con¬ 
sulting  the  wishes  of  any  other  country.  Within  a  year  the  little 
man  from  Mississippi  had  superseded  Benton  as  the  distinctly 
western  senator,  and  he  took  the  almost  insufferable  position  of 
ignoring  Clay  and  Webster.  Calhoun  he  patronized  and  labored 
with  in  the  hope  that  that  famous  statesman  might  rise  to  the 
highest  level  of  national  statesmanship.  The  South,  more  sensi¬ 
tive  now  than  ever  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  he  embraced  in  a 
way  that  took  no  denial,  for,  on  behalf  of  “our  peculiar  insti¬ 
tution,”  he  declared  himself  ready  at  any  time  to  go  to  war  with 
a  world  in  arms,  confident  that  the  South  would  emerge  trium¬ 
phant. f  Within  the  two  years,  for  which  time  he  had  been 
elected,  he  won  a  place  among  the  foremost  Democratic  senators, 
representing  all  that  the  West  demanded  and  distancing  Cal¬ 
houn  in  his  readiness  to  fight  for  southern  rights.  In  Missis¬ 
sippi  his  meteoric  rise  attracted  universal  applause,  and  when  the 
time  came  for  a  second  election,  delegations  of  prominent  men, 
many  of  whom  had  formerly  opposed  him,  visited  him  and  urged 
him  to  do  what  he  had  intended  to  do  from  the  first, — “stand 
again”  for  the  senate.  “Nothing  succeeds  like  success”  is  a 
favorite  American  adage,  and  so  it  proved  in  Walker’s  case. 
He  was  re-elected  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote. 

At  the  head  of  his  party  in  Mississippi  and  a  powerful  leader 
in  national  affairs,  he  gave  his  counsel  to  and  assumed  responsi¬ 
bility  for  the  wildest  financial  manipulations  ever  espoused 
by  an  American  commonwealth.  Under  Walker’s  leadership 
Mississippi  borrowed  more  than  ten  million  dollars  from  Nicholas 

*  Register  of  Debates  in  Congress,  Vol.  12,  part  I,  1029,  1172-73. 

If  Register  of  Debates  in  Congress,  March  2,  1836. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


ii 


Biddle  and  his  clients  on  state  credit  and  then  loaned  the  money 
to  planters  and  others  in  need  of  funds  on  the  uncertain  security 
of  lands  and  slaves.  Walker,  himself,  is  said  to  have  borrowed 
huge  sums  and  even  to  have  taken,  without  security,  a  portion 
of  the  sinking  fund  of  the  state  banks,  whose  directors  were  the 
medium  of  all  these  transactions.*  Nobody  seems  to  have  thought 
that  a  debt  of  ten  millions  was  any  burden  to  a  population  of  less 
than  four  hundred  thousand,  including  slaves. 

When  the  day  of  reckoning  came  Walker  and  his  party  escaped 
the  natural  result  by  inducing  the  legislature  to  repudiate  practi¬ 
cally  the  whole  debt  and  on  the  pretext  that  Nicholas  Biddle  had 
negotiated  with  the  agents  of  the  state  a  loan  which  was  con¬ 
trary  to  the  mandates  of  the  Mississippi  constitution!  Before 
1844  the  slate  was  clean  and  Walker  gave  himself  no  concern 
about  the  transaction,  while  it  was  quite  generally  regarded  as  a 
fine  stroke  to  have  outwitted  the  President  of  the  “monster  bank” 
whom  most  followers  of  Jackson  felt  to  be  legitimate  prey  for 
honest  Democrats.  Walker  suffered,  however,  in  his  personal 
fortunes,  and  he  was  brought  to  the  humiliating  necessity  of 
promising  his  creditor,  Martin  Van  Buren,  a  lien  on  his  meagre 
salary  as  senator.*)* 

He  was,  therefore,  almost  a  penniless  man  when  he  was  a  most 
powerful  senator,  intimate  with  the  President,  and  an  adviser  in 
all  that  came  before  the  Van  Buren  administration.  The  Whig 
“landslide”  of  1840  did  not  seriously  affect  his  fortunes,  for 
upon  the  death  of  Harrison  he  was  speedily  restored  to  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  confidential  friend  of  President  Tyler.  He  claims,  I  think 
with  justice,  a  large  share  in  the  shaping  of  Tyler's  financial 
policy  and  in  first  directing  the  attention  of  the  Government  to 
the  importance  of  establishing  diplomatic  relations  with  China 
and  Japan. 

But  the  greatest  work  of  Walker  before  the  civil  war  was  that 
of  the  year  1844,  when  he  became  the  author  of  the  whole  nation¬ 
al  program.  In  the  autumn  of  1843  some  Kentucky  Democrats, 
at  a  meeting  in  Carroll  county,  nominated  the  “Honorable  Robert 

*  6  Howard’s  Mississippi  Reports,  143. 

t Van  Buren  Manuscripts,  letter  of  Walker,  dated  Feb.  8,  1841. 


12 


Bulletin 


J.  Walker”  vice-president  and  sent  him  a  letter  asking  him  for  an 
expression  of  his  views  on  the  Texas  question.  Walker  replied 
to  this  request  in  a  pamphlet  of  some  forty  pages,  in  which  he 
showed  how  “all  Texas  and  all  Oregon”  had  long  been  the  prop¬ 
erty  of  the  United  States  and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  party  to  reassert  the  rights  of  the  country  to  these  vast 
possessions,  regardless  of  what  England  might  have  to  say.  He 
gave  out  his  reply  on  the  auspicious  8th  of  January,  then  cele¬ 
brated  everywhere  as  Jackson  day,  and  it  speedily  passed  through 
several  editions.  Few  pamphlets  have  stirred  up  more  discussion 
or  had  a  more  far-reaching  effect.  The  main  idea,  that  the 
United  States  should  assume  a  thoroughly  imperialistic  tone  and 
take  what  was  wanted  at  the  risk  of  war  with  England,  was  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  most  specious  reasoning.  When  the  Democratic 
convention  met  in  Baltimore,  in  the  following  May,  Walker  was 
as  much  the  master  of  the  majority  of  the  delegates  as  was  Mr. 
Bryan  in  a  similar  body  in  1912.* 

Of  course  the  way  had  been  long  preparing  for  the  adoption, 
by  one  of  the  great  parties,  of  the  Walker  policy.  Tyler  and 
Calhoun  had  committed  the  Government  to  this  program,  while 
Van  Buren  had  sought  to  moderate  and  control  the  enthusiastic 
imperialists.  But  Walker,  regardless  of  his  close  and  friendly 
relations  with  Van  Buren,  brushed  aside  that  powerful  leader, 
wrote  his  pamphlet  into  the  platform,  and  then  brought  about  the 
nomination  of  his  favorite,  James  K.  Polk,  for  President,  and  his 
brother-in-law,  George  M.  Dallas,  for  Vice-President.  Every 
one  acknowledged  the  power  of  the  little  senator,  and  in  the 
national  campaign  which  ensued  he  was  again  the  astute  and  re¬ 
sourceful  manager  he  had  been  in  his  great  fight  against  Poin¬ 
dexter  in  Mississippi.!  The  opposing  candidate  was  Henry 
Clay,  who  drew  to  himself  the  conservative  forces  of  the  country 
and  for  whom  the  greatest  exertions  were  made,  but  without 

*Van  Buren  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress;  letter  of  J.  L.  O’Sullivan 
to  Van  Buren  from  the  Convention  Hall,  May  27,  1844;  National  Intelli¬ 
gencer,  May  28,  1844. 

t National  Intelligencer,  Oct.  3  and  29,  1844,  shows  that  Walker  published 
and  circulated  a  pamphlet,  “The  South  in  Danger,”  in  two  editions  one  for 
the  South,  the  other  for  the  North. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


13 


avail.  Walker  was  only  less  successful  than  he  had  been  in  his 
earlier  undertakings,  and  it  was  exultantly  said  that“  this  is  the 
last  of  Clay,”  which  proved  to  be  the  fact.  The  election  of  Polk 
was  but  the  outcome  of  the  union  of  South  and  West  against 
New  England;  it  foreshadowed  a  hasty  and  resolute  imperialism 
in  accordance  with  western  and  southern  purposes.* 

Having  brought  about  a  revolution  in  politics  it  was  but  natural 
that  Walker  should  seek  to  direct  the  course  of  events.  The 
president-elect  invited  him  to  become  attorney-general.  Walker 
refused  the  honor  and  asked  for  what  he  considered  the  first 
position  in  the  cabinet,  that  of  secretary  of  the  treasury.  Polk 
could  not  or  dared  not  refuse;  and  the  man  who  had  completely 
bankrupted  himself  and  his  state  and  had  brought  dishonor  upon 
all  who  had  been  allied  with  him  in  financial  matters  became 
head  of  the  national  treasury,  and  it  must  be  said  in  his  honor 
that  he  has  ever  since  been  regarded  as  one  of  the  greatest  secre¬ 
taries  of  the  treasury  we  have  ever  had. 

But  the  primary  business  of  a  cabinet  officer  is  to  guide  the 
policy  of  the  country,  not  to  watch  the  subordinates  in  his  de¬ 
partment.  Walker  so  regarded  his  task,  and  he  began  very  early 
to  urge  upon  the  President  the  necessity  of  annexing  all  Mexico, 
not  merely  Texas;  while  his  party  friends  and  intimates  in  the 
Northwest,  like  Senator  Breese  of  Illinois,  insisted  that  all  Can¬ 
ada  must  likewise  be  “benevolently  assimilated.”  Polk  resisted, 
but  not  with  entire  success,  as  the  Mexican  cessions  of  1848 
attest,  and  the  country  was  thoroughly  infatuated  with  the  ex¬ 
pansionist  mania,  if  one  may  believe  the  contemporary  news¬ 
papers  and  the  speeches  of  members  of  congress.  As  the  war 
with  Mexico  progressed  and  Europe  became  hopelessly  involved 
in  the  widespread  revolutions  of  1848,  Walker  and  his  friends 
insisted  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  United  States  to  realize 
that  “high  destiny”  which  Providence  had  marked  out  for  her, — 
namely,  to  “spread  her  free  institutions”  over  the  whole  of  the 
North  American  continent. f 

♦See  the  author’s  study  of  “The  West  and  the  War  with  Mexico”  in 
Journal  of  the  Illinois  State  Historical  Society,  July,  1912,  pp.  159-172. 

tQuaife,  M.  M.,  Diary  of  James  K.  Polk,  III,  28. 


14 


Bulletin 


The  influence  of  the  West  and  South  was  made  to  bear  upon 
congress  until  it  was  about  to  yield  to  the  demand  for  seizing 
all  Mexico;  Walker  and  Buchanan  pressed  the  President  in  al¬ 
most  daily  cabinet  meetings.  Polk  recalled  Trist,  the  minister  to 
Mexico,  in  order  to  change  his  policy.  Trist  refused,  under  advice 
of  General  Scott,  to  heed  the  command  of  his  Government — con¬ 
duct  unprecedented  in  all  our  diplomatic  history — and  negotiated 
a  treaty  which  was  hastened  to  Washington  in  February,  1848. 
When  this  arrived,  Polk  and  his  advisers  were  angry,  but  help¬ 
less.  The  treaty  guaranteed  all  the  concessions  that  had  been 
demanded.  That  Europe  could  not  interfere  was  now  the  opinion 
of  all,  especially  of  Cass  and  the  senate  leaders;  and  to  make  the 
course  of  aggrandizement  easier,  an  agent  of  Yucatan  was  on 
the  ground  begging  the  President  to  annex  that  region  to  the 
United  States. 

Under  these  circumstances  Walker  expected  to  win  and  see  all 
Mexico  brought  under  the  flag  of  his  country.  But  the  Trist 
treaty  could  not  be  thrown  into  the  waste  basket,  as  Walker  and 
Buchanan  urged.  It  was  sent  to  the  senate,  where  it  was  to  be 
accepted ;  but  a  few  days  later  the  cabinet  recommended  that  the 
United  States  army  and  navy  take  formal  possession  of  Yucatan, 
knowing  that  this  would  undo  all  that  had  been  agreed  to  in  the 
treaty,  and  bring  at  least  the  dismemberment  of  Mexico.  Cass, 
Hannegan  of  Indiana,  and  Douglas  of  Illinois,  all  urged  this  step, 
and  it  was  only  by  a  sudden  move  of  Mexico  which  satisfied  Yuca¬ 
tan,  that  we  escaped  the  extreme  results  of  the  war  upon  our 
southern  neighbor — the  expansion  of  our  southern  boundary 
to  Central  America,  in  the  year  1848. 

As  secretary  of  the  treasury  Walker  carried  into  effect  the  in¬ 
dependent  treasury  scheme,  which  is  practically  identical  with 
our  present  system  of  subtreasuries ;  and  his  revenue  reform  bill, 
which  has  been  called  the  best  of  American  tariffs,  was  enacted 
in  1846,  and  it  remained  in  force,  with  only  slight  modification 
in  1857,  until  the  exigencies  of  a  great  war  compelled  a  change 
of  system.  It  filled  the  national  coffers  as  they  had  never  before 
been  filled,  so  that  the  financing  of  the  war  with  Mexico  was  a 
comparatively  easy  matter.  Walker’s  administration  of  the  treas- 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


15 


ury  of  the  United  States  was  made  the  subject  of  encomium  in 
the  British  parliament  by  no  less  an  authority  than  Sir  Robert 
Peel.  That  he  was  scrupulously  clean-handed  has  never  been 
denied,  though  he  allowed  August  Belmont,  the  representative 
of  the  Rothschilds  in  New  York,  and  William  W.  Corcoran,  the 
Washington  capitalist  and  public  benefactor,  to  take  liberties  with 
the  public  funds  which  were  the  subject  of  anxious  inquiry  on  the 
part  of  the  President,  who  was,  however,  usually  ignored  in  mat¬ 
ters  of  “high  finance.”*  Walker’s  old  friends,  the  Mississippi 
land  speculators,  were  also  allowed  to  collect  some  very  bad  claims, 
which  caused  Polk  to  make  ugly  entries  in  his  diary, f  but  I  have 
been  unable  to  find  any  evidence  of  a  more  serious  protest.  What 
is  a  President  to  do  when  he  has  a  most  imperious  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  who  at  the  same  time  dominates  and  controls  the 
leaders  of  his  party  in  congress  ?  A  confidential  diary  is  about  the 
only  recourse. 

A  sad  mistake  of  Walker  during  these  days  of  power  was  the 
placing  of  Jefferson  Davis  in  nomination  for  a  seat  in  congress. 
Davis  was  young,  able,  and  he  proved  to  be  popular  in  Mississippi 
beyond  all  calculation.  Resigning  his  seat  in  the  house  of  repre¬ 
sentatives  he  hastened  off  to  the  war  in  the  autumn  of  1846,  and 
in  the  spring  of  1847  he  was  the  hero  of  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista 
and  was  heralded  throughout  the  nation  as,  next  to  Taylor,  the 
greatest  general  of  the  day.  When  Davis  returned  to  Mississippi 
he  was  sent  to  the  United  States  senate  by  the  unanimous  vote  of 
the  legislature.  A  year  later,  when  the  Whigs  came  into  power, 
not  to  undo  the  work  of  the  Polk  administration  but  to  approve 
it,  Walker  was  out  of  office  and  Davis  was  the  great  man  in 
Mississippi.  The  retiring  secretary  saw  no  better  outlook  than 
to  open  a  law  office  in  Washington  City.$ 

The  man  who  had  made  Polk  and  guided  the  country  in  its  first 
era  of  conquest  now  took  up  the  career  of  a  lobbyist  and  a  lawyer, 
practicing  before  the  departments  he  had  so  recently  dominated. 
Such  are  the  extremes  of  fortune  of  the  American  leader.  He 

*Quaife,  Diary  of  Janies  K.  Polk ,  III,  164-167. 

flbid.,  II,  128,  129. 

%The  Free  Trader,  a  Mississippi  newspaper  of  much  influence,  March 
17,  1849. 


i6 


Bulletin 


never  returned  to  the  planter  life  of  the  lower  South  with  its  lord¬ 
ly  ways ;  and,  if  we  may  believe  a  letter  now  in  the  Van  Buren 
manuscripts,  he  repented  of  some  of  his  former  enthusiasm  for 
slavery  and  its  influence  in  public  affairs.*  He  might  well  have 
added  some  regret  for  the  unscrupulous  haste  with  which  he  had 
overthrown  his  friend  Van  Buren  in  the  Baltimore  convention. 

From  1849  t0  J^57  the  “Wizard  of  Mississippi”  led  the  monot¬ 
onous  life  of  his  somewhat  dubious  calling  in  Washington,  hop¬ 
ing  all  the  while  to  find  a  way  back  to  the  exciting  business  of 
public  leadership.  Twice  only  in  this  period,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  discover,  did  he  find  himself  a  subject  for  headlines 
in  the  newspapers :  once  when  he  went  to  England  and  cleverly 
sold  that  bond-loving  people  about  a  million  dollars’  worth  of  rail¬ 
road  securities,  enticing  his  quarry  by  buying,  with  the  proceeds 
of  his  operations,  some  thousands  of  tons  of  railroad  iron  which 
he  resold  in  New  York  for  good  American  money  ;f  and  a  second 
time,  when  he  was  asked  by  his  erstwhile  friend,  Jefferson  Davis, 
to  go  to  China  as  commissioner  of  the  United  States.  Davis 
was  now  the  power  behind  the  Pierce  administration,  as  Walker 
had  been  behind  that  of  Polk.  Somehow  the  appointment  was 
not  made,  Walker  giving  out  as  the  reason  the  failure  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  to  provide  him  with  a  national  ship  for  his  transporta- 
tion.J  Just  at  the  close  of  these  eight  years  of  private  life  he 
accepted  a  contingent  fee  from  a  California  mining  company 
which  yielded  in  a  short  time  a  harvest  of  some  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars.  j| 

If  he  ever  repented  fully  his  devotion  to  the  Democratic  party 
of  that  day  he  did  not  make  it  known  to  the  leaders,  for  in  the 
campaign  of  James  Buchanan,  whose  nomination  was  manipulated 
by  Henry  A.  Wise,  John  Slidell,  and  August  Belmont,  he  was 
a  most  effective  stump  speaker  and  apologist  of  slavery.  As  evi¬ 
dence  of  the  appreciation  of  the  new  President  he  was  tendered 
appointment  to  the  most  critical  post  in  the  country,  that  of  gov- 

*Van  Buren  Manuscripts,  letter  of  Frank  P.  Blair,  June  10,  1849. 

fUetcher,  John,  a  pamphlet  in  the  library  of  the  University  of  Chicago. 

JBrief  sketch  of  his  own  career  by  Walker  himself  in  National  Intelli¬ 
gencer,  Nov.  12,  1869. 

||Claiborne,  J.  F.  L.,  History  of  Mississippi,  422. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


17 


ernor  of  Kansas,  “bleeding  Kansas.”  The  President  made  a 
personal  matter  of  this  appointment  and  urged  acceptance  in  a 
way  most  flattering  to  Walker.  This  time  the  tender  was  re¬ 
ceived,  and  important  papers  of  the  country  hailed  the  former 
Democratic  leader  as  a  statesman  who  would  solve  the  problem  of 
slavery  in  the  territories.  Harper's  Weekly ,  already  playing  the 
role  of  political  prophet,  declared  that  Walker  would  return  from 
Kansas  successful  and  a  candidate  for  the  presidency,  which  high 
position  the  country  could  scarcely  deny  him.* 

The  new  governor  of  Kansas  made  a  point  of  visiting  Chicago 
on  his  way  to  his  post  and  while  in  this  city  he  was  in  confer¬ 
ence  with  Senator  Douglas,  the  one  man  whom  Buchanan  feared, 
and  who  had  been  cast  off  by  the  southern  masters  of  the  con¬ 
vention  which  nominated  him.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  the 
President,  at  the  beginning  of  his  administration,  was  in  agree¬ 
ment  with  Douglas  that  an  honest  referendum  of  the  slavery 
problem  to  the  actual  settlers  in  Kansas  would  bring  a  final  and 
satisfactory  solution.  If  so,  Walker  was  only  acting  in  good  faith 
when  he  made  a  confidant  of  the  man  who  had  most  reason  to 
distrust  those  who  had  come  into  power.  At  any  rate  the  new 
governor  went  to  his  difficult  task  in  full  harmony  with  the  author 
of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  and  an  avowed  candidate  for  the 
nomination  of  his  party  in  i86o.f 

Walker’s  inaugural  greatly  pleased  the  moderate  men  in  the 
warlike  territory,  and  it  became  clear  that  he  was  endeavoring  to 
carry  out  the  liberal  instructions  which  the  cabinet  had  given  him. 
But  it  is  also  clear  from  the  evidence  that  we  have  that  he  in¬ 
tended  to  return  to  Washington  the  following  year  a  United 
States  senator.^  He  asked  this  honor,  it  seems,  of  each  of  the 
parties  to  the  conflict;  and  I  think  we  are  justified  in  believing 
that  the  southern  element  was  warned  against  this  move,  while 
the  free  state  party  promised  him  the  coveted  honor.  His  decis¬ 
ion  as  to  voting  in  elections  about  to  be  held  was  in  favor  of 
the  free  state  men,  though  this  was  not  inconsistent  with  the 

*Harper’s  Weekly,  April  11,  1857. 

t Covode  Report,  105-6. 

$Brown,  G.  W.,  Reminiscences  of  Robert  J.  Walker,  84-90. 


i8 


Bulletin 


known  wishes  of  the  administration  when  he  received  his  appoint¬ 
ment  From  the  day  that  Walker’s  position  became  known  as 
an  actual  fact  the  southern  men  in  Kansas  and  Missouri  made 
relentless  war  upon  him,  while  to  the  opposing  party  he  became 
a  hero.  The  Lecompton  constitution  was  naturally  opposed  by 
Governor  Walker,  and  in  the  autumn,  convinced  that  the  Presi¬ 
dent  had  changed  his  ground,  he  returned  to  Washington  to 
insist  upon  his  point.  The  way  to  the  capital  led  Walker  to  Chi¬ 
cago  once  again.  And  a  strange  meeting  took  place  in  this  city 
that  October,  if  we  may  believe  a  contemporary  witness.  Greeley, 
Seward,  Weed,  and  Douglas  held  a  friendly  conference  here  and 
decided  upon  the  line  of  procedure  for  the  next  congress.  Wal¬ 
ker,  I  am  convinced,  was  also  at  the  meeting,  though  this  is  not 
as  yet  susceptible  of  proof.* 

After  this  conference  the  great  men  of  the  East  journeyed 
homeward;  Walker  went  to  Washington  to  await  events,  while 
Douglas  came  on  a  little  later,  big  with  the  foreknowledge  of  the 
coming  conflict.  The  latter  visited  the  President  for  the  first  time 
since  the  inauguration  to  demand  his  repudiation  of  the  Lecomp¬ 
ton  constitution.  The  demand  was  indignantly  refused  and  Doug¬ 
las  fired  the  opening  gun  of  the  campaign  of  i860  in  the  senate  on 
December  9,  1857.  Walker  resigned  a  week  later ;  while  Greeley, 
Weed,  and  Seward  began  the  manoeuvres  in  the  press  of  the  East 
which  would  have  resulted  in  the  effacement  of  Lincoln,  a  dan¬ 
gerous  man  to  Seward, f  and  in  the  re-election  of  Douglas  to  the 
senate.  What  Walker  was  to  receive  I  am  unable  to  say,  but 
he  hoped  for  the  vice-presidency  and  he  had  good  reason  to  ex¬ 
pect  nomination  for  the  office. 

Walker  was  again  a  stranded  politician.  The  only  effect  of  the 
sojourn  in  Kansas  had  been  the  casting  of  a  bomb  into  the  ranks 
of  the  powerful  and  well-disciplined  Democracy,  which  made  of 
it  two  bitter  factions,  each  seeking  the  overthrow  of  the  other, 
and  which  also  opened  the  way  to  the  White  House  for  the  young 
and  more  deserving  Republican  party.  Walker  did  not  take  an 

♦Newton,  Jos.  F.,  Lincoln  and  Herndon,  1912,  p.  215. 

fThough  this  was  not  recognized  at  the  time. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


19 


active  part  in  the  conflict  of  i860,  though  he  was  known  to  be  a 
supporter  of  the  “Little  Giant.”  Davis  and  the  powerful  group  of 
southerners  who  controlled  Buchanan  spurned  him  as  a  traitor 
to  their  camp. 

When,  in  the  early  months  of  1861,  war  became  inevitable, 
Walker,  like  Douglas,  gave  all  his  influence  to  the  Lincoln  admin¬ 
istration,  and  in  1862  he  was  sent  to  Europe  as  special  financial 
agent  of  the  Federal  Government,  bearing  a  letter  of  credence 
from  President  Lincoln.  In  London,  where  he  set  up  his  head¬ 
quarters,  he  assumed  a  dignity  comparable  only  to  that  of  the  Aus¬ 
trian  ambassador.*  Charles  Francis  Adams  he  patronized  openly 
and  irritated  beyond  endurance. f  His  mission  was,  however,  of 
the  gravest  importance.  The  Confederacy  was  then  borrowing 
money  both  in  England  and  France  without  difficulty,  while 
the  finances  of  the  United  States  showed  a  weakness  and  derange¬ 
ment  which  augured  the  success  of  their  enemy.  England  and 
France  treated  the  representatives  of  the  Lincoln  administration 
with  ill-concealed  hostility.  The  purpose  of  Walker’s  appoint¬ 
ment  was  to  break  down  the  credit  of  the  South  and  at  the  same 
time  to  sell  the  bonds  of  the  United  States. 

“All  is  fair  in  love  and  war”  runs  an  old  adage,  and  Walker 
acted  without  scruple  upon  this  principle.  He  began  by  show¬ 
ing  conclusively  that  Jefferson  Davis,  not  himself,  had  been  re¬ 
sponsible  for  the  wholesale  repudiation  of  the  Mississippi  bonds 
in  the  early  forties.^  Davis  had  risen  to  prominence  in  his  state, 
fighting  the  repudiating  movement  which  Walker  had  actually 
counseled.  But  what  gave  Walker  a  great  advantage  was  the  fact 
that  many  people  in  England  had  lost  their  money  by  the  con¬ 
duct  of  Mississippi  and  that  Davis,  laboring  under  the  false  view 
of  the  politician  in  such  things,  had  defended  and  justified  in 
the  United  States  senate  an  act  of  his  state  which  he  had  at  the 

♦Claiborne,  History  of  Mississippi,  422. 

fWalker’s  London  Letters — A  pamphlet  published  under  the  title 
American  Slavery  and  Finance,  pp.  1-5. 

JWalker,  American  Slavery  and  Finance,  the  third  London  letter,  pages 
1  to  5. 


20 


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time  condemned.*  No  matter;  financiers  in  England  and  else¬ 
where  believed  the  plausible  story.  Walker  printed  at  govern¬ 
ment  expense  thousands  of  copies  of  his  pamphlets.  They  were 
translated  into  German  and  French  and  circulated  on  the  conti¬ 
nent.  The  leading  newspapers,  like  the  London  Times,  "car¬ 
ried”  Walker’s  articles  on  the  Confederate  securities,  and  at  the 
same  time,  or  during  the  year  1863,  he  published  the  most  glowing 
account  of  the  soundness  of  the  Federal  finances  and  of  the  re¬ 
sources  of  the  North  on  which  her  securities  were  based. f 

Whether  we  credit  the  speedy  change  of  conditions  in  Europe 
to  Walker  or  not,  it  must  be  allowed  that  his  work  was  of  the 
greatest  importance,  for  in  the  shortest  space  of  time  Confed¬ 
erate  bonds  lost  all  value  in  London  and  Paris,  while  Walker 
himself  sold  two  hundred  and  fifty  millions’  worth  of  United 
States  "five-twenties,”  remitting  the  proceeds  to  the  treasury  in 
gold  at  the  beginning,  I  believe,  of  the  year  1864. 

The  Confederates  always  attributed  the  failure  of  their  cause 
in  large  measure  to  the  breakdown  of  their  credit  in  Europe, 
and  it  seems  not  at  all  unreasonable  to  assume  that  our  little  "Wiz¬ 
ard  of  Mississippi”  was  the  most  important  individual  influence 
in  bringing  about  that  result.  I,  for  one,  am  tempted  to  say  that 
his  work  was  as  decisive  in  bringing  the  Confederacy  to  its  knees 
in  that  sad  winter  of  1863-64  as  that  of  the  general  who  com¬ 
manded  at  Gettysburg,:|:  for,  as  is  well  known,  Secretary  Chase 
was  at  the  very  point  several  times  of  urging  the  recognition  of 
the  South  because  he  could  not  find  the  money  necessary  to  keep 
up  the  gigantic  struggle. 

It  is  the  rule  in  politics  to  use  human  vessels  until  they  cease 
to  be  of  value.  Such  was  the  case  with  Walker.  After  spending 
his  second  fortune  in  "riotous  living”  for  his  country  abroad,  he 
returned  to  Washington  to  be  half,  if  not  wholly,  spurned  by  his 
government.  The  South  regarded  him  as  a  traitor;  and  now  the 
North,  whom  he  served  with  a  zeal  which  allowed  of  no  defeat, 

♦Dodd,  William  E.,  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,  60-61. 

•{•Washington  Daily  Chronicle,  Sept.  11,  1863. 

tThe  Washington  Daily  Chronicle,  inspired  by  Secretary  Chase,  said, 
Sept.  11,  1863:  “Few  men  in  public  or  private  station  have  rendered  greater 
service  to  the  country.” 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


21 


seemed  to  be  ashamed  of  him.  He  took  up  his  work  of  lobbyist 
again  and  more  than  once  he  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  some¬ 
thing  of  the  “seamy”  inside  of  things  at  the  capital. 

As  Professor  Dunning,  of  Columbia  University,  has  recently 
shown,*  Walker’s  services  proved  very  useful,  both  to  his  own 
government  and  to  that  of  Russia,  in  the  spring  of  1868,  when 
the  house  of  representatives  refused  to  make  an  appropriation  to 
pay  for  Alaska.  Secretary  Seward  and  De  Stoeckl,  minister  of 
the  Czar’s  government  in  Washington,  were  in  distress.  De 
Stoeckl  engaged  John  W.  Forney,  editor  of  the  Washington 
Chronicle,  the  leading  paper  at  the  capital,  to  advocate  the  imme¬ 
diate  payment  of  the  money  called  for  in  the  treaty,  already 
ratified  by  the  senate.  The  minister  paid  Forney  $30,000  for  his 
services.  He  then  employed  Walker,  for  a  consideration  of 
$26,000  in  gold,  to  “engineer”  the  desired  measure  through  the 
recalcitrant  house.  The  able  ex-senator  plied  the  arts  known  to 
be  effective  with  many  statesmen  and  with  the  aid  of  the  resources 
at  his  command  he  persuaded  the  congress,  which  was  aflame  with 
indignation  at  President  Johnson  for  an  alleged  understanding 
with  the  defeated  southerners,  to  vote  the  appropriation ;  $200,000 
were  spent  by  the  two  governments  to  secure  the  necessary  act  of 
congress,  and  Secretary  Seward  is  on  record  as  saying  that  the 
price  of  votes  ran  as  high  as  $10, 000.  J  Again,  it  might  be  regard¬ 
ed  as  invidious  in  the  student  to  read  the  list  of  the  famous  names 
implicated  in  this  affair. 

But  it  does  seem  to  me,  as  I  read  the  evidence,  that  it  was  a 
mean  thing  in  Seward  and  De  Stoeckl  not  to  tell  Walker  whom 
they  had  bribed.  He  was,  therefore,  put  into  the  embarrassing 
attitude  of  soliciting  the  price  of  dishonor  from  his  superiors  in 
the  business  even  when  this  was  unnecesary.  For  example,  Wal¬ 
ker,  observing  to  De  Stoeckl  how  great  was  the  service  of  his 
friend,  Forney,  in  the  editorials  of  his  paper,  asked  for  a  substan¬ 
tial  reward.  Three  thousand  dollars  were  handed  him  for  the 
editor,  and  he  was  instructed  to  say  in  paying  it  that  the  Czar’s 

*  American  Political  Science  Quarterly ,  October,  1912. 

tDunning  has  found  a  memorandum  of  this  in  a  paper  in  the  handwrit¬ 
ing  of  President  Johnson,  in  Johnson’s  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress. 


22 


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government  highly  appreciated  the  services  of  the  great  news¬ 
paper.  Walker  innocently  urged  the  acceptance  of  the  paltry  sum 
upon  his  friend,  who  declared  in  reply  that  his  high  position  and 
unsullied  integrity  would  not  allow  of  such  an  act.  Walker  went 
to  his  grave  thinking  that  there  was  at  least  one  honest  man  in 
Washington. 

Our  hero  closed  his  career  as  he  had  begun  it — true  to  his 
extreme  nationalist  ideals  and  unscrupulous  imperialism.  In  the 
spring  of  1869,  when  Charles  Sumner  stirred  the  country  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  excitement  and  anger  against  Great  Britain  by 
his  speech  in  the  senate  demanding  the  cession  of  all  Canada  as 
indemnity  for  the  injury  done  American  shipping  during  the 
war  by  southern  cruisers,  Walker  wrote  articles  for  the  press 
arguing  that  Canada  was  only  a  "selvedge  of  the  United  States” 
and  urging  the  people  of  the  Dominion  to  revolt  and  throw  off 
the  shameful  yoke  of  England  and  join  their  brethren  of  the 
Republic.  His  appeals,  made  with  all  the  glow  and  ardor  of  his 
earlier  years,  were  widely  read  and  influential,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  England  had  loaned  so  much  money  to  the  sore- 
pressed  Republic  through  the  agency  of  Walker  himself. 

Twenty  years  before  Sumner  had  denounced  the  imperialism 
of  the  Polk  administration,  of  which  Walker  was  the  mentor; 
in  1869  the  famous  New  England  abolitionist  joined  hands  with 
Walker  in  this  plan  to  force  war  upon  Great  Britain,  friend  and 
benefactor  of  both  men,  in  order  that  the  American  flag  might 
have  sway  over  a  people  who  were  already  better  governed  than 
those  of  the  United  States.  Truly,  politics  makes  strange  bed¬ 
fellows,  and  never  did  stranger  companions  lie  down  together  than 
Charles  Sumner  of  Massachusetts  and  Robert  J.  Walker  of  Mis¬ 
sissippi. 

Half  a  year  later,  November  11,  1869,  at  the  age  of  68,  when 
the  country  was  becoming  aroused  over  the  scandal  of  the 
"Alaskan  deal,”  the  "Wizard  of  Mississippi,”  worn  out  with  the 
toils  of  an  eventful  career,  answered  the  last  call.  He  was 
buried  in  Oak  Hill  cemetery,  where,  as  I  have  already  said,  his 
remains  rested  in  an  unmarked  grave  for  nearly  forty  years,  and 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


23 


where  his  simple  marble  slab  gives  only  the  name  of  the  man 
whose  remains  lie  beneath  it,  but  not  an  inkling  of  the  importance 
of  the  career  thus  commemorated.  And  when  I  visited  the  ceme¬ 
tery  some  time  ago  the  keepers  and  attendants  insisted  that  no 
Robert  Walker  had  ever  been  buried  in  those  grounds! 

Thus  runs  the  story  of  our  greatest  imperialist,  of  one  of  the 
Nation’s  saviors  in  time  of  danger.  It  emphasizes  to  me,  at 
least,  the  old  saying  that  history  is  stranger  than  fiction. 


24 


Bulletin 


Our  Graduates  and  the  Teaching 
Profession 

BY 

Dr.  E.  B.  Crooks,  Professor  of  Philosophy  and  Education 

ONE  of  the  strongest  claims  for  public  consideration  which 
Randolph-Macon  Woman’s  College  can  make  is  based 
upon  its  contribution  to  the  teaching  force  of  the  country. 
The  nineteen  graduating  classes  have  had  five  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  members  and  of  this  number,  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  are  known  to  have  taught  at  sometime,  and  two  hundred 
and  twenty-six  are  teaching  at  present.  Our  records  of  graduates 
are  not  as  complete  as  they  should  be  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
a  good  number  more  than  we  have  mentioned  have  taught.  Of 
the  eighty-five  graduates  of  the  class  of  1914,  thirty-five  are 
teaching,  that  is  41  per  cent.  The  per  cent  of  all  our  graduates 
who  are  known  to  have  taught  is  58,  and  the  total  proportion 
teaching  at  sometime  is  probably  about  65  per  cent.  Most  of 
these  have  taught  a  number  of  years  so  that  it  is  fair  to  say  that 
they  have  worked  in  at  least  five  hundred  schools. 

I  have  said  nothing  about  our  former  students  who  have  not 
graduated  but  who  have  taught.  We  have  no  records  of  this 
large  class  but  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  number  of  this 
class  who  have  taught  is  as  large  as  that  from  the  graduates. 
Naturally,  most  of  these  have  taught  in  the  primary  schools,  how¬ 
ever  a  good  number  of  them  are  known  to  be  working  now  in  high 
schools.  About  seventy-five  per  cent  of  our  graduates  who  teach 
are  able  to  secure  at  once  places  in  high  schools.  And  we  ap¬ 
prove  of  this  selection,  as  we  believe  that  they  are  especially  well 
fitted  for  this  grade  of  teaching. 

The  importance  of  this  contribution  which  our  college  has  made 
to  education  is  not  easily  overestimated.  Of  course  a  large  ma¬ 
jority  of  our  graduates  are  from  the  southern  states  and  it  has 
been  just  within  these  last  twenty  years  that  the  South  has  devel¬ 
oped  its  public  secondary  school  system.  Our  graduates  have  had 
the  privilege  of  helping  to  form  these  schools  and  to  set  their 
standards.  A  good  number  are  teaching  now  in  colleges  and  nor- 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


2  5 


mal  schools  where  teachers  are  trained.  The  uniform  testimony 
of  school  superintendents  and  high  school  principals  is  that  our 
graduates  are  thoroughly  prepared  for  their  work.  One  State 
Superintendent  has  gone  so  far  as  to  say  publicly  that  he  can  tell 
as  soon  as  he  enters  a  high  school  whether  a  Randolph-Macon 
Woman’s  College  graduate  is  teaching  there.  I  am  able  to  repeat 
this  because  my  own  connection  with  the  college  has  been  so  short 
that  I  could  not  possibly  claim  any  part  in  this  good  work. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  graduates  of  1914  whom  we 
know  to  be  teaching : 


MEMBER  CLASS  OF  1914 
Abbitt,  Sarah 
Brame,  Annie 
Brandt,  Epsie 


TEACHING 

Margaret  College 
High  School 
Assistant  in  Political 
Science,  Randolph- 
Macon  Woman’s 
College 

Brenau  College 
High  School 
High  School 
High  School 
Grades 

Instructor  in  Physics, 
Randolph-Macon 
Woman’s  College 
High  School 
High  School 
High  School 
Assistant  in  Psychologi¬ 
cal  Laboratory,  Ran¬ 
dolph-Macon  Woman’s 
College 

Estey,  Cora  Ruth  High  School  (private) 
Ford,  Agnes  High  School 

Harmanson,  Margaret  High  School 

Harnsberger,  Elizabeth  M.  High  School 

Harnsberger,  Virginia  High  School 

Hefley,  Luella  McFerrin  School 

Hickman,  Wilmoth  Grades 

Holliday,  Mary  D.  New  London  Academy 


Brooke,  Alice  Mary 
Cameron,  Stella 
Carskadon,  Mattie  R. 
Carter,  Fay  Smith 
Cross,  Johnnie  Mae 
Cure,  Dorothy 

Dashiell,  Emily  I. 
Devany,  Frances 
du  Val,  Julia 
Edmunds,  Emma  C. 


Horn,  Gertrude 
Jennings,  Emblyn 


Grades 

Grades 


PLACE 

Versailles,  Kentucky 
Camden,  Arkansas 
Lynchburg,  Virginia 


Gainesville,  Georgia 
Lexington,  Virginia 
Maryland 
Danville,  Virginia 
Birmingham,  Alabama 
Lynchburg,  Virginia 


Dover,  Maryland 
Portland,  Arkansas 
Rural  Retreat,  Virginia 
Lynchburg,  Virginia 


East  Machias,  Maine 
Burkeville,  Virginia 
Parksley,  Virginia 
Harrisonburg,  Virginia 
Ashland,  Virginia 
Martin,  Tennessee 
Birmingham,  Alabama 
Forest,  Virginia 
Lynchburg,  Virginia 
Roanoke,  Virginia 


26 


Bulletin 


MEMBER  CLASS  OF  1914 
Lewis,  Kate 
Maples,  Will 
Marshall,  Hardinia  M. 
McClay,  Katharine 

McClintic,  Lucille  L. 
McGregor,  Agnes 
Miler,  Ruth  N. 
Moseley,  Vivian  S. 
Stewart,  Mary 
Sydenstricker,  Pearl 
Thornton,  Jeannette 
Ventres s,  Harriet 


teaching 
High  School 
High  School 
High  School 
Randolph-Macon  Insti¬ 
tute 

High  School 
Grades 
High  School 
High  School 
High  School 
Misssion  School 
Margaret  College 
Soule  College 


PLACE 

Waverly,  Virginia 
Forest  City,  Arkansas 
Kentucky 
Danville,  Virginia 

Marlinton,  W.  Virginia 
Lynchburg,  Virginia 
Summerville,  S.  Carolina 
Houston,  Virginia 
Scottsboro,  Alabama 
Chingking,  China 
Versailles,  Kentucky 
Murfreesboro,  Tennessee 


Last  year  the  Faculty  appointed  a  committee  to  systematize  the 
work  of  aiding  our  graduates  to  secure  teaching  positions.  This 
committee,  consisting  of  Professors  J.  I.  Hamaker,  J.  F.  Peake, 
and  E.  B.  Crooks,  organized  a  Bureau  of  Appointments.  Suit¬ 
able  blanks  were  printed  and  circulars  were  sent  out  to  former 
graduates  offering  such  help  as  could  be  given.  The  response 
was  such  as  to  prove  that  the  former  graduates  appreciated  this 
show  of  interest  on  the  part  of  the  College. 

This  committee  recently  reported  the  work  of  the  past  year  to 


the  Faculty,  as  follows : 

Graduates  of  1914  enrolled .  35 

Undergraduates  enrolled  .  2 

Former  graduates  enrolled .  45 


Total  enrollment  .  82 

Places  known  to  have  been  secured  . 51 

Places  probably  secured,  but  of  which  no  report 

has  been  obtained .  25 

Still  desiring  places  .  6 

Recommendations  made,  about  .  240 

Letters  written,  over .  400 


The  showing  as  to  the  number  of  our  graduates  who  have 
taught  is  gratifying,  especially  when  it  is  remembered  that  the 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


27 


College  makes  no  direct  attempt  to  interest  its  graduates  in  the 
teaching  profession.  Ours  is  not  a  teacher’s  college  in  any  sense, 
our  sole  academic  purpose  being  to  offer  a  thorough  collegiate 
course  of  training.  Our  experience  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
such  a  course  is  the  best  training  for  teachers  of  secondary 
schools. 

A  little  more  than  one-sixth  of  our  graduates  have  gone  on  to 
pursue  courses  of  special  training  in  the  leading  colleges  and  uni¬ 
versities  of  our  country,  and  a  few  have  attended  European  uni¬ 
versities.  We  have  a  record  of  ninety-eight  who  have  taken  post 
graduate  work.  Of  this  number,  twenty-nine  have  received  post 
graduate  degrees. 

Four  members  of  the  Class  of  1914  are  known  to  be  now  doing 
graduate  work,  one  each  at  Columbia  University,  The  New  York 
School  of  Philanthropy,  Vanderbilt  University,  and  George 
Washington  University. 


28 


Bulletin 


A  Randolph-Macon  Song  Book* 

BY 

Miss  Louise  Lanham,  A.  B.,  1906 

EVERY  college  student  knows  that  college  songs  are  worth 
while.  Their  value  in  stimulating  the  intangible  but  very 
real  thing  that  we  call  college  spirit  has  been  proved 
times  without  number.  What  Randolph-Macon  freshman  has 
ever  felt  quite  so  homesick  again  when  once  she  has  promenaded 
with  others  among  the  shifting  throng,  up  and  down  the  length  of 
Main  Corridor,  all  the  way  from  East  Hall  to  West,  and  has 
sung  with  a  new-born  enthusiasm,  “God  Bless  You,  Randolph- 
Macon”?  The  College  will  welcome  the  Randolph-Macon  Song 
Book  as  a  timely  contribution  to  the  enjoyment  of  its  life,  and  as 
a  valuable  factor  in  the  promotion  of  a  wholesome  college  spirit. 
It  is  a  volume  of  eighty-five  pages,  appropriately  bound  in  black 
and  gold.  Thirty  of  the  most  representative  Randolph-Macon 
songs  appear:  most  of  these  were  written  for  the  Woman’s  Col¬ 
lege;  a  few  others  represent  other  Randolph-Macon  institutions. 
Besides  these  are  included  many  of  the  songs  that  students  in  all 
colleges  are  fond  of  singing.  The  words  of  the  song-poems  are 
set  in  clear,  easily-read  type,  and  the  music  has  been  carefully 
gone  over  and  harmonized  where  there  was  need. 

A  larger  consideration  makes  this  effort  worth  while.  Sev¬ 
eral  years  ago  one  of  our  professors  said  in  class:  “Now  when 
you  compare  our  school  with  some  of  the  older  Northern  women’s 
colleges,  it  looks  as  if  we  had  just  got  a  lot  of  brick  and  mortar  to¬ 
gether  over  night,  and  started  a  college  right  out  of  hand.”  Most 
of  us  will  be  willing  to  admit  that  there  was  truth  in  his  words. 
He  knew  our  Alma  Mater’s  good  points — as  who  of  us  does  not? 
— but  he  meant  that  along  with  those  we  also  have  the  very  nat¬ 
ural  faults  of  a  young  college :  that  we  are  somewhat  lacking  in 
atmosphere,  association,  traditions.  May  we  not  then,  as  we 
have  opportunity,  rightly  proceed  to  cultivate  atmosphere  and  to 

*A  Selection  from  Songs  Sung  in  Randolph-Macon  Institutions.  Edited 
by  Prof.  J.  L.  Armstrong.  J.  P.  Bell  Co.  Price  $1.00  and  $1.25. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 


29 


gather  traditions?  The  publication  of  a  college  song-book  is 
surely  a  forward  step  in  such  a  process,  and  all  loyal  Randolph- 
Macon  students,  both  past  and  present,  will  welcome  it  as  such. 
It  may  be  that  our  best  songs  are  still  to  be  written ;  but  even  in 
that  event  the  conservation  of  such  as  we  already  have  is  wise. 
Perhaps  through  knowing  them  some  one  may  yet  be  inspired  to 
write  what  shall  be  our  best-loved  and  most  representative  col¬ 
lege  song. 


